In Pictures
In pictures: Venezuela’s divide
Opposition demands a full recount of votes a day after poll results declared interim-president Nicolas Maduro as winner.
One day after Venezuela’s tight election results were announced, the opposition is not backing down in its demand for a full recount of the votes.
Election authorities say the government of interim President Nicolas Maduro won with a margin of less than 300,000 votes.
Opposition leader Henrique Capriles told his supporters on Monday to bang pots and pans to draw attention to election irregularities, and the sound of clanking metal resonatated through Caracas, even in working-class neighbourhoods where government support had previously been guaranteed.
“The counting of the votes was unfair,” Cynthia Aguilar, a student demonstrating with the opposition, told Al Jazeera. “The people will start to rebel and realise the truth.”
Opposition supporters rallied in the upmarket Altamira square district on Monday afternoon, while government partisans congregated at the office of the National Electoral Council.
“Capriles is being very irresponsible by not recognising his loss,” Michel Mujica, an electrician and government supporter, told Al Jazeera.
“If I was Capriles, I would be ashamed. He lost to [former president Hugo] Chavez in October and now he lost again to Maduro.”
Leaders on both sides have called for calm, but it seems that Venezuela’s political divide will only sharpen in the coming days.
